


Benefactor

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Hacking, Memories, Mystery, People Who Can't Express Their Emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 14:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2028561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharon finds out something worrisome about her Aunt Peggy's records. Steve agrees to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Benefactor

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for references to Alzheimer's and also to canon character death and grief after.

Steve was signing in on the visitor log at the facility where Peggy was staying when he heard a familiar voice coming from the manager’s office.

“I would expect that your reputation for competent security would prevent things like this from happening,” Sharon told the manager as Steve walked over and stood in the doorway.

“Is everything all right?” Steve asked.

“Are you paying my Aunt Peggy’s bills?” she demanded.

“What?” Steve said. “No, I -- I would be happy to, though.”

She covered her eyes for a moment, then recovered. “Sorry. I just –” she said, then stopped and sighed. “Aunt Peggy asked me last week to take over her finances for her. She – she says she doesn’t have enough good moments any more to spend them on things like that.”

Steve nodded, wincing. Peggy had been getting worse.

Sharon continued, “But then I found out that someone has been covering all of her expenses here. But Aunt Peggy thinks it’s coming out of her savings.”

Steve frowned. “It’s not me. Could it be SHIELD?”

She shook her head. “I already checked. And I can’t find anything out about where the money is really coming from. I’m sure this sounds paranoid, but there’s no way to be sure it’s some generous benefactor and not….”

“Not someone trying to manipulate the situation somehow,” Steve said, nodding. Peggy had a lot of powerful friends but a lot of powerful enemies too. “And it has to be someone with resources if an agent like you can’t track them down.”

She looked up at him. “I can’t let anyone try to use her… situation against her.” Her jaw was tight, and she looked pained, vulnerable almost. He never saw her like that except when they were both visiting Peggy and it turned out to be a bad day.

“We’ll find out who it is,” Steve said. It was Peggy: they were on the same team.

She nodded, more determination in her face than Steve had seen since that time some idiot had told Peggy to stay out of the field.

\--

Their leads went nowhere; whoever it was, they were good.

Steve suggested they take it to Natasha; she had a way of finding out things other people couldn’t.

“It looks like your only leads are the electronic trail, so I don’t know what I can do,” Natasha told them.

“I pulled in some favors,” Sharon said, “And asked the best techs at SHIELD to look it over. They couldn’t find anything.”

“Coulson knows a hacker. Says she’s one of the best – he’s lying low, but I’m sure he’d pass along the request to help his childhood hero,” Natasha said, smirking a little. The team still liked to tease Steve about Coulson’s admiration, especially now that Coulson was the Director.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”

Sharon elbowed him for his sarcasm, and told her, “Thank you, really.”

“Sure. I’ll put in a call.”

\--

**You have 1 new email message.**

**To:** steverogers1920@hotmail.com  
 **From:** coulsonp@shield.org  
 **Subject:** Re: Results of inquiry

Dear Captain Rogers,

Skye was able to find out who is paying for Retired Director Carter’s treatment. It took her a few days because the electronic trail was, according to Skye, created by “a mad badass hackertastic genius who doesn’t code like any normal person would,” which I suppose should have been our first hint.

The source of the payments is Tony Stark. I’m not sure of the reason, but at least we know that it’s not a security threat. (Not that Tony’s never going to be a security threat – please follow up with Clint and Natasha on plans to take the Iron Man suits down without injuries in case JARVIS is ever compromised or Tony gets really, really drunk.)

Give my warmest regards to Retired Director Carter. I don’t want to use too much of her time by asking for advice, but please let her know that I admire her greatly for spending years in this position without ever once burning the place to the ground out of sheer frustration.

Best wishes,  
Phil Coulson

 

\--

“I’m going to ask Tony why,” Steve said.

“Aunt Peggy was friends with Howard, she probably knew Tony,” Sharon said. She was mostly relieved that it wasn’t some elaborate HYDRA plot to gain influence over her vulnerable aunt.

“I’m seeing him this weekend. I just want to know why.”

She smiled. “Well, I’m not buddies with Tony Stark, so I’m not going to crash the conversation. But please tell him that Aunt Peggy has plenty of savings and so does my family. He shouldn’t feel obligated.”

“I know him. He won’t stop paying just because you ask,” Steve said.

She nodded. “In that case, tell him I said thank you.”

\--

“Peggy Carter? Oh that’s right, she knew my parents I think,” Tony said.

“You’ve been paying for her stay at a very expensive facility,” Steve said. 

“Maybe Pepper knows more. She does a lot with helping veterans issues through the foundation.”

“Tony. I’m grateful. And Sharon wanted me to tell you thank you also.”

“Okay. You’re welcome.” Tony turned back to look at a blueprint.

Steve tightened his jaw. “I just… don’t understand why you never said anything. I’ve told you lots of times about visiting Peggy. And… I don’t tell that many people about that.”

Tony looked back at him. “I know.”

“I just don’t see why you would keep a secret like this from me.”

Tony looked down. “It’s not a secret. I didn’t know her that well, so I didn’t feel it’d be right for me to comment. I only met her once.”

“Once?”

“Yeah. I mean she seemed nice and all. So I heard she wasn’t doing so well and so I took care of some bills. It wasn’t like it was a lot. And my mom seemed to speak highly of her. So it just didn’t seem like a big deal.” He still wasn’t looking at Steve.

Steve knew that it would have been a great deal of money for anyone not named Stark. But he also knew that sometimes Tony just felt like being generous and no one really knew why.

“Okay. Well, like I said, thank you. For doing that,” Steve said eventually. He didn’t like the feeling that Tony was hiding something, but he didn’t want to push when Tony was doing something so nice for Peggy.

“No prob. Hey Cap, pass me that wrench?”

Steve handed it to him and didn’t bring it up again.

\--

Sharon was just leaving the next time Steve showed up to visit Peggy. She gave him a nod and smile as she walked out, a silent thank you for his help.

“Steve! So good to see you,” Peggy said. “Have you figured out Tumblr yet?”

“No. Not even close.”

“My granddaughter showed me how to use it. There are apparently a number of pictures of you on there,” she added, teasing.

“Great. That sounds like the kind of site I would enjoy,” he said with a grimace, and she laughed.

“Peggy,” he said then, “Do you know much about Tony Stark?”

“Oh,” she said, eyes going soft, “The sweetest little baby you ever did see. Bright eyes, so alert. Always making lots of noise, playing with his rattle,” she chuckled. “Maria thought he wanted attention, but Howard insisted that the baby was trying to figure out how the rattle worked.”

Steve nodded, eyes going a little downcast, thinking that Peggy was back in a time when Tony was just an infant.

“Of course, for such a sweet little baby, he turned into a bit of a loudmouth as an adult,” she added wryly.

Steve grinned. “You weren’t a fan of making Iron Man public, huh?”

“Oh, it’s probably just me being old-fashioned. We kept things close to the vest back then.”

“I remember.”

“How is Tony doing? You’re friends with him now, yes?”

“Most of the time,” Steve joked. “So you saw him when he was a kid?”

“Quite a bit when he was a baby. The Starks would bring him everywhere, couldn’t keep themselves away from him. Until a SHIELD facility was attacked with them inside. It turned out all right, but it was a close thing. After that, Howard and Maria insisted that Tony not go anywhere near SHIELD, not even their friends who worked there. We all respected their choice.”

“I see. So did you ever meet Tony when he was older?”

She grimaced. “Once. When his parents were killed. I wanted to tell him myself.” 

Steve’s face shifted. “Oh.”

She shook her head. “Poor kid. He was about 21 I think. He looked older than 21 in a sense, but in some ways he looked much, much younger. That’s how the Stark men are, I guess. That, and they’ll never show you their emotions. Though I guess you know something about that too, Steve. But I told Anthony, and he just nodded and didn’t show any pain, except in his eyes. That boy’s eyes never could hide anything.”

Steve agreed with that.

She continued, “And he knew right then, that he was in charge of the Stark empire, all that weight and he just did his best to look like it wasn't heavy. He calmly shook my hand and thanked me for telling him and said his parents always spoke highly of me. And he said not to worry about Stark Industries’ contracts with SHIELD because they would all be fulfilled. He was trying so hard to be calm, to be strong in front of his father’s friend.”

“Tony knew about SHIELD when he was a kid?”

“Well, that’s what was so surprising to me. Howard and Maria had tried so hard to protect him from knowing anything about it. But the kid was smart. He must have dug into some things without his parents finding out.”

“That does sound like Tony.”

“I stayed then to help him make the arrangements. Somewhere in the middle of the planning, I noticed he was gone. His room was locked, so I picked it.”

“Naturally.”

“He was sitting on the floor crying,” Peggy said, shaking her head at the memory.

Steve closed his eyes. He could picture it, and it hurt like hell. 

He knew what it felt like.

“He tried to cover it up,” Peggy said, “He didn’t want me to see him like that, but I wasn’t about to put up with that nonsense.”

“No kidding,” Steve said, smiling a little through the sharp of the moment.

“We sat on his bedroom floor, both of us crying. It was… a bad day. I hadn’t held the boy since he was a year old and now…. And I knew he was smart enough to know the deaths were suspicious, and I just felt awful that I couldn’t tell him more, but in that moment, I was thinking about the friends that I’d lost and how much they would have wanted to be there for Anthony. So we just sat there on his floor for a long time, not saying anything. Then we got up and spoke to the drivers and florists and did what had to be done. I saw him at the funeral too, but he was a bit tipsy and left before everyone could offer their condolences.”

Steve nodded and looked down at the floor. For some reason, the only thing he could think to say was, “I’m seeing Tony tonight. The team’s having dinner.”

She smiled, approving. “It’s good that you have friends again. You were turning into such a mopey boy for a while there.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Any time, Rogers.”

Steve just laughed despite himself.

\--

Steve walked into the kitchen where Tony was unloading the contents of takeout boxes onto crystal plates. 

He was fully intending to tell Tony that he knew exactly why he was paying Peggy’s bills. But somehow, when he walked in, he knew that he had no right to bring it up if Tony didn’t want him to.

“Steve! You like Thai food, right?” he said with a bright smile, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. 

Steve paused, then said, “I guess we’ll find out,” and started to help Tony take out the silverware. 

He thought about Howard, brilliant, infuriating, fiercely loyal Howard, who answered every challenge with a quip and a smile, and saved Steve’s ass more than once. And he looked over at Tony and grinned.


End file.
